Early Birds’ Eye View Sept 6, 2018

G’day Gents,

Many of us learned about Gord Forsythe’s recent surgery and hospital stay on Thursday. Things were good, then dicey, but thankfully, improving again as of Monday morning Sept 10th, with updates being provided by Heather via Bob. Thanks to Bob for passing those on so quickly, and to Heather for keeping us in mind as she supports Gord. For further updates keep an eye on your email.

Minutes from last Thursday:

Dan Kennelly – picked up 3500 paving bricks from an old community hall demo. Waste not, want not will turn into a new driveway.

Mel Gibson – Had been away for 5 weeks turning himself into a Lethal Weapon on the golf course when he got his first ever – hole in one on hole two at Copperpoint (if memory serves – my keyboard did not). Mel returned and to a LOT of changes in the office. Among them, Brokerlink will no longer be dealing with Aviva. Intact will pick up a lot of that work. “ Water continues to be the new fire .” Take note, read your policies and protect yourselves and your property or properties. Brokerlink currently has 5 offices…will be buying a few more and will be consolidating their distributed corporate presence into one location in the Bantrel building just off Glenmore Trail January

Matt Litke – Just returned from the Kenora Ont. area. As many have attested to, it’s simply gorgeous. Of note, and not related to scenery, but certainly with scenery enhancing properties (particularly around 2 am when the ugly lights come on) – Lake of the Woods brewery – great beer. There’s a lot of wildlife in that area and Matt had some close but not threatening encounters with deer on the road. His tip was to definitely be alert on long tiring drives. Jim Bladon chimed in with a note that this is the pre-rutting season and the bucks, in particular, are very unpredictable and can be aggressive.

Todd Dean – Has been busy with clients old and new. He’ll miss Birds the next three weeks due to client meetings this Thursday but then, back to Ottawa for two weeks to continue to support his dad as the company MyndTec continues to work on restoring function in his father’s arm post-stroke. That company name is what happens when committees made up of IT people who can’t talk, never mind spell, struggle to come up with a catchy name.  The tech though is impressive. Todd’s dad could regain more than 60% of the function in that arm with the technology. You can read more about it here: http://www.myndtec.com/

Don Doolan – reported being at the airport for his Nexus card interview. The Nexus folks let him know that facial recognition is coming within the next year. Not much will affect it..beards, glasses tattoos etc, no problem. Dining tip: Yvonne felt like fish and the two of them went back to a place that had underwhelmed Don a bit in the past, a restaurant on Edmonton Trail called Big Fish. He was impressed enough with their  Sunday night dinner special to recommend it for the landlocked fish lovers at Birds. $35-$40.

Emerging markets getting beaten up. Might be a good buy opportunity as well.

There’s good value to be found in the Healthcare space.

RBC is Bullish on oil.

Brad Pachal – was just out in Kelowna…and found no  meaningful traffic on the way to see grandkids. However, the family couldn’t get near Lake Louise it was so crowded. No parking anywhere. Stayed at Revelstoke Sutton hotel. Loved it. Working hard over the next 4 weeks. *Ed. Note: I’d stayed at the same hotel September 2017, and we had a favourable impression too. Kids loved the mountain roller coaster just out the back door of the hotel.

Henry Heuver – is busy and noted that companies that were in “wait and see” mode in the Spring are now working and moving forward with jobs and projects.

Paul Boucher – passed on some real estate news via Ken Rigel’s newsletter. Unfortunately, it’s not available on the web. The document he derived the information from is via his website and this link https://krgroup.ca/_media/documents/market-reports/August%202018.pdf?inline=false?inline=false. Head’s up: although the beef in the bun is on page 1, it’s a 27-page document. Here’s an extract from the newsletter:

From another realtor, Val Laferriere with Remax: “… What you may not know is that the $1 million+ market has actually done better year over year. In fact, homes priced $1.5-$2 million have exceeded last years number of sales and sale prices. 

By contrast, there is a lot of ache and pain in the lower and mid price ranges, most noticeably $500k-$650k is still very hard hit. I believe this is directly related to mortgage rules.  It is tougher to qualify in these ranges, and those buyers will not have any savings to do “work” to a home. Something to consider before listing your home to get maximum dollars!

www.RelocatewithVal.ca”

Ian Campbell – is still hunting for a full-time audiologist, or 3. Regulation in place to protect consumers has an unintended negative consequence on businesses like Ian’s. In this case, Alberta’s requirement that audiologists hired from out of province need a minimum vetting and qualifying period to be able to do work that is essential to Ian’s clinics. The regulation essentially acts as a provincial trade barrier. Business is good though. While he’s looking for audiologists, he’s working on his omnipresence. It’s not going well.

Tony Fisher – reports that in the hospitality industry, the coming $15 minimum wage is causing apprehension.   Anecdotally, he reports seeing a drop in employment in various businesses. Tips lower too. There have been a number of closures that could be partly related to the additional labour expenses. He’s also seeing trouble with restaurants finding back-end staff. Restaurants are in tough.  As for airport staff, among their other expenses, they have to pay $60 a month per employee for parking. He also noted that the new airport CEO has caused higher than normal senior airport staff turnover.

Brett Bain – On restaurants: OSI is planning their regular customer appreciation dinner. They’re planning it at Ruth’s Chris. When they initially approached them they received a quote of $100 a plate. They’ve recently come back to OSI with a $65 a head quote. OSI found the Ruth’s Chris experience better for them and their customers than Saltlik. Food in particular.

Jim Bladon – all is well in financial services. Order books full through the first part of 2019. Craft beer still a busy area, specifically in Okotoks, Cochrane, but others as well. The distillery space is following suit. The industry and its various stakeholders are watching government program supporting the industry closely. AB has to alter it by January. In the ag space, harvest is in full swing. East side of the province is dry though and there are concerns about crop quality in parts of the southeast of the province. In other news, farmers are worried about the weather.

Jim’s son’s involvement in hockey in the Humboldt area has resulted in a good stream of Humboldt Broncos news. The latest: in a tribute to the players who died in the bus crash, the team will be retiring their numbers of players.

Don Davis – provided us with the first news of Gord Forsythe’strialss and tribulations before updates from Heather and Bob took over. He’s at the Seton campus.

Also relayed another story involving Telus customer service: one of Alberta’s oldest oxymorons. After calling to alert them to a lack of home phone service, the problem was eventually discovered to be a neighbour’s new sprinkler system flooding the Telus box in the area (best quote from that bit o’ the story was the inside of those boxes looking like “…a bad spaghetti dinner…”). Anyway, the upshot is that this is a 10-day long issue with partial resolution (they have service back). No word on what Telus has done with the neighbour.

Matt Dart – reported that work is slow at the moment. He oversees a group of 9 guys with quotas, and figures only one or two will make quota. Long term care facilities are one busy areas.

He also spoke about a recent experience trying to get some custom made clothing via a new player on the scene: Indochino.  In short (pardon the pun), the pants were long, shirts so short they wouldn’t tuck in. Overall he was disappointed…it took up a lot of time for very little positive benefit.

Andy Lockhart – small wager with Sean. Advantage Lockhart for now…

Two stories: One was about a friends grandson who has difficulty with conversation with new people who recently moved into res at U of C. This experience likely won’t help. He happened to sit down to a black kid ( or African-Canadian if you play on Justin’s side of the fence). When he said hello to introduce himself, the black kid responded curtly that he only talks with black people; he doesn’t talk to white people.

Golf story – After Andy’s group fell behind in a round because of the group in front of them, Andy politely mentioned to a woman in the group that they were behind the pace of play (by several holes at its worst). Afterwards, one of the women basically said that Andy had ruined her life (OK, just the round), and complained. The woman’s husband called. The facts were reiterated. The husband didn’t take the facts well. In any case, Andy sounded like he didn’t think that was the last of it. He’s waiting for the club to get involved. Summary: “Women use the rules for revenge. Men use them for fairness.”

Bob Wiggins – spent an extended long weekend in Koocanusa. It was not nearly as exciting this past weekend as it was earlier in the season. The trip did result in a good tip though: “…put your vehicle in park”. Bob recounted the story of a woman who did NOT put her pickup in “Park”. When she walked away, the truck did what it was designed to do: roll. As it rolled, the truck wound up sideswiping a building, picking up a bit of momentum before running over a few trees and then heading over an embankment/small cliff and dropping into the lake, where it floated for a bit before sinking.

Passed on another tip about terrific, honest service at Capital Chev Olds. Saved $$.

JD MacDonald – Mentioned Rona Uberhaus product not to criticize the product itself per se, but to note that parts and service can be a tough go. A client with an Uberhaus problem now has an Uber Large and expensive fix on his hands because it’s impossible to get parts. He recounted how about 5 years ago, he tried to help another customer with an Uberhaus-related problem. He couldn’t get through to the manufacturer, though he did finally reach the supply management arm of the company. In the end, there were no parts anywhere across the country. JD’s Tip: make sure you ask questions about parts in the future to avoid nasty repair costs with any plumbing hardware.

Dwayne Vinck – Picking up on Matt Dart’s negative experience with Indochino, he advised that Vietnam great place for custom suits.

He also added to Jim’s comment about Craft beer by saying that the regulation pendulum will swing back.

The merger he’s been working on hasn’t happened. Ultimately, these deals are about people. In this case, one 60 and one  63 year old principal. Despite much larger sums in the bigger picture, it fell apart (or is threatening to) over about $35k.